This invention relates in general to digital data processing and more specifically, to a system for managing start-up, or boot-up of computer systems.
When a computer system is first powered up many functions must take place to put the computer into an operational stage. These functions are commonly referred to as “boot-up,” “booting,” “bootstrapping,” “booting up,” etc.
Typically, the booting procedure is well defined for any given machine. However, procedures can vary from computer to computer especially where the computers have different resources and peripherals, are configured differently, have been made by different manufacturers, are intended to execute different software, etc.
In some computer applications, it is desirable to coordinate, interconnect and configure multiple computer systems so that more computing power, or resources are available. The prior art provides some ways to control the boot-up of a target machine, such as a personal computer (PC). For example, one common prior art method is to boot from an executable image on a floppy disk.
Typically, if a floppy disk is detected in a PC's floppy drive during boot-up, the PC loads the executable image from the floppy drive and transfers control to the executable image. By providing boot-up from a floppy, users can easily direct specific booting of their machines. This approach works well for situations where a user wants to, e.g., boot to a specific operating system, allow an application to take control of the PC at boot-up, etc. However, this approach is not desirable when automated booting of many different machines is desired since inserting a floppy disk into a PC is a manual operation. When there are dozens, hundreds, or thousands of target machines to be managed, the approach of booting from a physical floppy is prohibitive.